Meridian Bioscience (NASDAQ:VIVO) announced today the two new sample-specific master mixes, Lyo-Ready Direct DNA qPCR Stool Mix, and Lyo-Ready Direct RNA/DNA qPCR Stool Mix.
These mixes help scientists improve the molecular detection of DNA and RNA from crude fecal specimens, while allowing for room temperature stabilization of diagnostic assays.
“The use of Lyo-Ready™ Direct qPCR Stool mixes for DNA and RNA is ideal for cancer biomarker detection, early cancer detection, and cancer treatment monitoring where assay sensitivity can be lifesaving. The specific adaptation of our chemistries to stool specimens makes our master mixes the perfect tool for any developer seeking faster new product introduction, shorter time to results, or the ability to transform a wet assay to an ambient temperature-stable assay with minimum developmental time,” said Florent Chang-Pi-Hin, Ph.D, vice president of research and development for life sciences at Meridian.
Meridian is a life science company that develops, manufactures, markets and distributes a broad range of diagnostic products. The company develops and delivers better solutions that give answers with speed, accuracy and simplicity. It also provides the critical life science raw materials used in immunological and molecular tests for human, animal, plant and environmental applications. Also, it provides diagnostic solutions in areas such as gastrointestinal and upper respiratory infections and blood lead level testing.
Meridian Life Sciences
Stool samples show up in plenty of gastrointestinal (GI) diagnostic tests. These look for harmful bacteria, fungi, viruses, autoimmune conditions and colorectal cancer (CRC). The fecal occult blood test (FOBT) is most widely used GI immunoassay for CRC over the past three decades. Recent studies have shown that FOBT lacks the sensitivity necessary to uncover early stages of CRC, and better tools are required to improve accuracy, sensitivity and affordability. Molecular testing is the latest alternative and has offered significant improvements in terms of sensitivity and accuracy.
Finding DNA or RNA from stool comes with its own challenges, because it contains polymerase chain reaction (PCR) inhibitors including bile salts, polysaccharides, and catabolic substances. Getting past these challenges means expensive and time consuming sample processing and extraction steps. These increase the time-to-results and cost, all of which cause delays to diagnosis and treatment.
Meridian’s two new stool mixes make the old method of nuclear acid extraction or lengthy component optimization obsolete. This enables test developers to develop more sensitive and speedier assays for sample analysis. Also, these mixes are used in liquid or lyophilized (freeze dried and vacuum sealed) format. This eliminates the need for cold storage.
Meridian Bioscience is up $0.50 today and closed at $29.00.
